David Bowie’s famous “Space Oddity,” which was about both the moon landing and drug abuse (Bowie’s spiraling out of control mirrors Major Tom’s own loss of communication with Ground Control), offers a wealth of poetic lyrics.
The most unintentionally elegiac line, however, is “Am I sitting in a tin can?” This is a question office workers ask themselves every day as they commute in the subway with other members of the boxcar race and when they arrive to their scant cubicle space to perform a number of inane tasks. The struggle to make money in New York also comes complete with a struggle for space. And even when you get money, you can’t put a price on not feeling like you’re trapped in a tin can everywhere you go.